Black Hearts Procession
by A Copper Coin
Summary: Slipping on the sidewalk outside of her favourite cafe, Raven finds herself slipping into a world totally different than the one she knows: her past. [ONESHOT] [BBRAE] [AU]


-author's note- The funny thing is, even though I have finished my obsession with teen titans, I still sometimes use them for short stories in english class. Whenever I have a writers block, it always goes back to them and I write a story like this. However this one was a while ago. That's all. Just wanted to point all that out. I will get to writing something else soon. I just haven't figured it out yet. XD

-disclaimer- It's an AU, but it's still Teen titans and, though it's a fanfic site and everyone knows; I still do not claim to own any of the characters. However, I do claim right to this text, and so there.

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Rachel breathed out long streams of steam from her lips as she walked briskly down the street. Even through her thick black gloves there was a steady amount of freezing air blasting through to her chilled fingers and she had to fumble a bit with her currently immobile fingers to tighten and retie the belt around the outside of her coat to keep the cold out.

'Only two blocks,' she thought, reminding herself to never trust her internal logic system in the future. Before she had left the library she had consoled herself with the simple thought that, of course, it was only two blocks to the nearest coffee shop and that's nothing.

However, she had neglected to factor in the blistering air and the minimal help her coat and gloves were doing to stop it.

The sidewalks were mostly empty, and meanwhile the snow fell constantly in clumps of white, falling quickly into melted piles of slush and juice which attempted to seep through the seems of Rachel's boots. Even the city's taxis seemed to be taking a rest, for she had only seen a couple since the beginning of her odyssey for something as small as a cup of tea.

"Nickel Street," Rachel whispered, looking ahead past the street sign to see the most warm, welcoming, great big neon sign she'd ever laid eyes on. On a warmer day just the sight of such a sign would have been stimulus enough to cause the young lady to mutter in some profane sarcasm; at the very least roll her eyes in her favourite coffee shop's misuse of earth's materials, but today it was a sign of hope. It showed through the darkness to a helpless girl who was seconds before freezing – it showed that there was hope to life, that she would not die in this miniature blizzard – it showed that The Coop was open and that they were going to be serving her tea.

With this little incentive, Rachel tugged her hood further over her iris coloured hair and walked more quickly the last twenty feet down the icy sidewalk toward the door which would bring her happiness. Warmth was only a few feet away now and she would soon be sipping her warm beverage by the fireplace in a nice cushy chair with one of the books she had brought with her from the library now that her shift was over. The lights would be dim, but not too dim to see clearly; candles would be lit at every table to give a nice homely mood; the walls would be painted black and forest green to give the impression of nearness and an idea of everything being closer together than it actually was. On some nights they had bands set up on the side to play music, mostly jazz and blues, and other nights they had poetry readings – where all of the serious poets came to showcase their work and get serious feedback as well.

All in all, Rachel just loved pretty much all of what The Coop had to offer.

Especially when that was getting her out of the freezing snow when –

In less than a second the neon sign couldn't be read anymore; all Rachel could see was the pure white sky above her head and even brighter flecks of white sparkling down in front of her eyes. She had slipped on one of the more dangerous patches of ice of the sidewalk and had fallen on her back.

For a moment she just laid there, watching the whiteness swirl around her and imagining she was six years old again and making snow angels with her mother watching. They were both laughing.

They never laughed.

Even when she was little Rachel had taught against showing more emotion than absolutely necessary. But there always was a precious time when Arella had slipped her cover and the two of them had fallen into a snow bank or a pile of leaves, laughing and pretending that everything was just the way it was with normal families, but Rachel when they were done Rachel's mother would sit her down and tell her that the two of them had to be careful – had to be inconspicuous and could not trust a single soul with any information about where they had come from or who her father was and why they must take as many precautions as they did every day.

Why they must never be found.

Rachel sighed briefly as she blinked for a moment, not liking one bit the direction her train of thoughts had taken, so she derailed them, focusing once again on the sky above her.

But this time she remembered that she was supposed to be cold, which she somehow wasn't, and also saw that the sky was not white as it had been before. Now it was a crème colour – with green dots and spectacles.

And it was speaking to her. Shaking her shoulder and speaking to her. She couldn't make out the words immediately but they began to gain shape as he continued to say them to her.

"Hey, dude, come on, focus. You gotta wake up. You're all right now so just wake up for me and you can sleep for as long as you want afterwards."

His voice was kind of annoying, but familiar and as his face came into focus he grinned, noticing that Rachel was beginning to open her eyes.

"Afternoon," he said to Rachel before turning around to call to the cashier, "Hey, man, you got her poison all ready yet? I'm sure she's gonna want it!"

"Man, I don't think she'd appreciate you calling it a poison," another voice said from the side. Rachel didn't recognize it as Tim, who worked as a cashier, so she assumed it was one of this guy's friends.

"But it tastes so –"

Rachel sat up, interrupting the face's conversation with his friend, causing him to jump up in alarm. Looking around without saying a word, Rachel realized she had somehow been brought into The Coop – maybe by the guy who was sitting over her so obnoxiously – and this led her to another question; how did she not know?

"How did I get in here?"

Rachel had already answered the question tentatively in her head, but she wanted to hear a clear answer from a human being, not her possibly sainless mind.

"Girl, you fell." The voice which had spoken earlier without a name showed up in front of her now. It was a big man – tall with dark skin and a bulky muscular form, but he had a smile on his face that said a thousand things, number one being that he wasn't nearly as scary as he appeared. "And you must have fainted 'cause when we came by you were out like a light. So we brought you in here and that dude up there," he pointed to Tim, who was bustling towards them with a coffee mug, "knows you. Rachel, was it?"

"Yeah," her reply came monotonously. She would have asked more questions but it was in that moment that Tim swooped toward her, forcing her fingers around the hot glass. Her hands had been stripped of their protection, and her coat was gone as well. On her lap now sat a big brown coat, up from which drifted a heavy aroma of cologne. It was definitely strange to have someone else's jacket keeping her warm but she tried not to think about it too hard. She was lying on one of the two reclining sofas not far from the fire, so she tried to remember that she was warm, and that was all that mattered.

To her right, the oversized dark guy looked at his watch briefly before his eyes bugged out of their sockets. "Dude, Gar, we gotta go. Kori'll pro'lly freak out if we don't show up like ten minutes ago."

The first guy, a young man who she now discovered, upon his standing up, was pretty short, looked up quickly and stood. When she looked at him now, which she really had not had a chance to do before, she discovered that he was quite blonde; his face was pointy in ways that can only be described as, well, pointy, and his mouth was, even in this moment in which he seemed completely serious, seemingly twisted into a cocky smile. The corner tucked up in a secret that he would taunt in front of you for hours before grinning and telling you that there was no secret.

"You go, Vic," he said, not paying attention as Rachel reoriented herself and handed Vic, as he had called him, his coat back from her lap. The tall man accepted it graciously, smiling and putting it on while he listened to Gar speak, "I'll stay here for a little while and catch up with you guys later. Our Star'll understand."

"Yeah, but Dick may be a little ticked off." Vic pulled a hat out of one of his pockets and fixed it on his head. "Either way, I'll cover you and I'll call when I find out where we're going."

"All right, dude, see you later."

Rachel just watched as the two parted. Sinking into her long chair with her still half full mug of tea, she tried to ignore the fact that this Gar fellow had decided to stay with her even though he was supposed to go see a girl named Kori –

Why did that name sound so familiar?

Readjusting herself so that she could see the blonde boy who was no longer sitting beside her but talking to Tim, apparently trying to get soda or hot chocolate or something, she waited till he returned to the chair beside her lounge before she spoke again.

"Kori – what's her last name?"

Gar grinned, "Well you don't plan on stalking her to try to get to me, do ya? 'Cause all you have to do is ask." Rachel's face twisted into a look of annoyance, giving him the clear answer to that question, "Er, well, I mean, her name's Koriand'r. Just that. Most teachers always said something stupid like '_Miss Kori-Ander_' even though her name isn't even pronounced like that, but we went to school together, her and me and Vic and Dick, who's her boyfriend but we still like him, and we're all just back in the city and decided to get together."

Rachel just stared for a moment, thinking about her own experiences in school, her own memories of a girl named Kori who they also called Star, but didn't want to think about it. However, Gar's face seemed to be waiting for an answer so she brushed away some loose hair from her eyes and stated,

"That was a very run on sentence."

Gar grabbed his hair in mock terror. "No, don't bring back school to me! I mean, anything but that!"

"I suppose you didn't enjoy English class," Rachel stated kind of lightly but inside her brain was churning with what he had said only seconds before. During her stay at school, Rachel had not made many friends, preferring loneliness and seclusion to popularity of any kind. But a girl with a name no different than Koriand'r had seen her and made it her mission to be the friend – the best friend that Rachel would have during her stay at boarding school. Even though it turned out to be shorter than either of them planned.

The morning sky was grey, and a sweet breeze blew softly, whispering sweet nothings through the branches of the trees and bushes, and the air was warm. Bustling through campus were the sounds of movement – students came into their dorm rooms with their boxes and suitcases and returning scholars embraced their friends with gleeful smiles and happy greetings. Beside a dark car in the bustling parking lot stood two women, set off by their very aura of separateness and darkness. They looked very alike, but one was more sullen and very young. They stood in silence, staring, for many moments.

The older woman, beheaded by black curly tresses, finally shifted her weight and sighed. "Remember; you are here and you are Raven. Do you understand?"

Sullenly across from her, already set in school uniform with her purple hair glinting dark and bright in the afternoon sun, the one who was a Raven replied, "I never was and will go no where. I understand."

Once again, silence overcame them, staring before nodding and turning away from each other sharply to exit in their separate paths. The Raven heard the car door open, at which point she stopped, listening for the inevitable sound of a rusty old engine, the revving on the accelerator, and the crunching sound of tires ricketing over the rocky path; going away, never to return.

"Rachel."

The name was whispered, but the Raven heard it clearly, turning around, preparing herself to run back to her mother as fast as her legs could hold her and to be the daughter that she wanted to be. To hug her; one last time and one first time. She would even degrade herself to tears on the older woman's jacket if the embrace lasted long enough.

As the violet hair flew away from her face, brought up in front of her eyes by the sudden whiplash of her head, the Raven saw nothing. The car was gone and her mother was gone, and the Raven quickly recovered her face with the stony silence of her mask; indifferent to the world; the boys and girls running around her and the cars coming and going without purpose.

She walked back to her dorm room; single, simply decorated and very small, floating above the ground as her slow steps echoed against the pavement in long continuous patterns.

The Raven had decided long ago to be her own person. She promised herself that she would not bend to the expectations of the world, to change for anyone else's benefit or to degrade herself to anything less than her own standards without great reason. She would not attempt to be accepted by anyone and she would follow her mother's instructions to the very letter.

"Hello!"

The cheerful voice penetrated through the Raven's peaceful lonesomeness, even if it was hesitantly and shyly spoken. She stopped walking and looked to see who stood behind her, curious to see who would speak to her so suddenly; she knew no one here. The Raven raised her eyebrows at the girl who had greeted her.

She was a tall and a bit awkwardly shy seeming girl – no, the Raven realized when she looked a little closer – not awkward but just a little bit bashful at the moment. Her hair was red – a deep orange colour and it fell to a point further than her hips, and she too donned the same uniform that she herself wore.

"Yes," she continued, clearly a little bit daunted by the blank look which invaded the whole of the Raven's face, "Do you know where to find – the hall of Reed?"

Blinking, the Raven responded in monotone, "Reed Hall – dormitory?"

The redhead seemed to release a great amount of air in relief as her response, and she nodded her head vigorously to show that the Raven had guessed it right. "Definitely! Do you know where to find it?"

The Raven nodded, saying no more, and turned, continuing on her journey. Consequently and possibly luckily, that was the very hall that she lived in – Reed Hall – so she wouldn't have to do anything else than what she planned.

Still being her own person.

"My name is Koriand'r," the voice said again, surprising the Raven and sending her into a shocked state for a moment. She had not been expecting any more speaking from the other girl. "I am new here and I wonder, how long have you been in attendance here?"

The Raven rolled her eyes but did not ignore the question; she may have been stony but never rude. Her mother's rules had always included politeness.

"It's my first year as well."

She left it like that.

Koriand'r lived right down the hall with a peppy soccer player who quickly befriended the foolish redhead, but every morning before breakfast the Raven was greeted by the cheery smile and grand greeting which grew larger with every day. The world was her drug, and she flew higher all the time.

Rachel looked away from Gar, sipping her tea from the warm mug and thinking about the past. Her heart was beating fast as her mind subconsciously attempted to squash all other memories from surfacing; she had told herself she would never remember again.

Noticing the silence to be a bit awkward, Gar leaned forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and placing his chin in his hands. Rachel could feel his heart pounding, exhilarated and nervous – why was he nervous?

'Oh,' Rachel realized, thinking about what she'd just thought, 'My senses are coming back.'

"Well," Gar continued, pensive and trying to cover up the silence and saying practically the first thing that came to mind, "There used to be five of us – six of us actually. But… stuff happened; some weird stuff… it all happened when we went to school here in the city and two of our girls went MIA – dude, you know what I mean? That's why Star's got so many guys around here; there used to be more girls and they both…" his heartbeat began to accelerate again, Rachel could feel it as her own heart ran faster and faster, "Why am I ranting to you like this? Sorry Rae…"

They were both quiet again, which seemed to embarrass the young blonde and he stood up and walked back and forth, probably cursing himself for starting to get too deep into what really was a casual conversation. He had touched on a subject that, probably, went too deep for him to talk about seriously to a girl he'd just been chatting with.

The two breathed for a moment, both in unison and quietly before, in a slightly consoling tone Rachel asked, "What happened to them?"

It was such a childish position the two of them were in. They locked eyes for a moment while Rachel studied his outer clothing and felt the thoughts that churned through his head. Not what he was thinking, but what he was feeling. He was feeling confused, and it was an honest emotion. When she was looking at his exterior, his black jeans, jean jacket and tee-shirt, she had thought how he seemed to be the immature type; the kind of boy who could not ever have anything to say that wasn't a joke.

But he was very serious now, and he sat down again, slouched.

"Her name was Terra – the one who went first. Man, though. She was cool.

His head hung now, and Rachel didn't move. Frozen, she watched him expectantly, like the words on a page than cannot become active without imagination to spur them, so was Rachel to Gar's story. She was unable to say a word, neither uttered nor silent.

His own quietness continued for a few moments, but then he continued.

"She was cool until the end, right? Till she did some stupid things –" his tone was mildly passionate. He had been close to Terra. If she had not been sitting right in front of him, he may have come to tears " – But everybody does, okay? … she just kinda got into some bad stuff and…"

With a twitch, Rachel was able to move again. By some alien instinct she felt drawn to comfort him. It surprised both of them that her hand fell to rest on his shoulder; both of them bathed in silence. The surprise was doubled when that silence was broken by Rachel.

"It's okay," she whispered, continuing to run on instinct, and an unknown instinct at that. She hadn't acted this way since –

'No!' she thought forcefully, 'Memories are…'

"Terra, you're better than this!" BB screamed to the blonde girl standing in front of him, barely a few feet away but listening as if she were miles away. In place of her school uniform she wore all black – even her make-up had changed – black tattered jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood covering nearly any remnants of her buttery yellow hair. She was nearly unrecognizable from a distance – it even took Raven a few seconds to realize who he was talking to as she approached from afar – the biggest reason being the look on her face.

Though Raven had never liked her, she did not often think badly of her. The fact that Terra was happy all of the time was a known fact to the girl so to see such a menacing smirk, laced with grimacing and fire in her eyes, across Terra's face made her heart sink.

"No," Terra replied, her grin becoming more like a sad smile for a moment as if accepting her fate, "I'm not."

The two were standing in the soccer field, and only a few feet away was – _him_ – the man who had gotten Terra into this mess, dressed in black and orange with most of his face invisible in the shade of his own hood. Raven watched worriedly from behind the bleachers, wishing for a moment that she had been born with some kind of superpowers. She wanted to help.

The wind behind her seemed to change direction almost at once. It was nearly as though the weather was going to agree with the mood of the scene – it was going to be nasty.

"I know you better than that, Terra," cooed the wide-eyed BB, trying to walk toward her at an unrecognizable pace so that she would not notice his approach in time, "You're smart, you've got everything going for you, you've got us-"

Terra stepped back sharply, glaring at him now in defense. "It's _because_ of you guys that I had to do this!" Her eyes were filling with tears, "I needed the money just to stay here!"

"You know we'd do anything for you! Any of us! If you'd said a word, just one word, we wouldn't have even asked, we would have helped you!"

"Do you think," Terra flipped some hair that had fallen onto her shoulder out of the way defiantly, "That I would come crawling to anyone? I have to do things by myself, BB! You said you knew me better than that!"

He shook his hair wildly, died green stands flying every which way to prove his point. "We're friends! It's not crawling when you ask a friend for help – _any of us would have helped!_"

Terra's face was now a stony exterior that Raven recognized all too well. She would not change her mind for anyone now – Raven herself had made such a face many a time before and understood it.

The blonde's eyes shot to Raven, followed by an accusing finger which directed straight at her. "She wouldn't," she stated casually.

Raven's mind went wild for a second. She knew that her hiding place wasn't well developed or perfect but it unnerved her that she was known now. Looking around vigorously for a way out, she came face to face with the man who had, just moments before, been standing right by Terra. Raven was terrified, but she resumed her stony expression – she was going to be strong for BB, even if he was stupid for coming out here alone. The only time she broke her mask was to give a glance of hope to the younger seeming boy; only for a moment before her normality was resumed.

"Yes you," Terra said, looking right at Raven, who had been walked to the field by the hidden man, ignoring BB once again, "You hate me more than anything. –"

"No one hates you!" BB was fanatic in his scream, and Terra glared at him, which caused his eyes to widen and to silence him for a moment.

Whispering into Raven's ear, who couldn't move out of both fear and containment, she said, "I am the exact same person you are. Yet, we are complete opposites. You're dark, I'm light – depressed, happy. We both want the same things and have the same weaknesses. You hate me because you want to be original and you would never want to be me. Most of all you hate me because I have him. If I told him, right now that if he killed you I would return to him, he would do it – because he's in love with me. And you don't have that. And that's just the tip of the iceberg."

Raven struggled now, forcing herself to remain emotionless. "I am nothing like you. I'd never resort to selling drugs."

Chuckling, Terra grabbed Raven's chin, who was still struggling but continuing to fail. Her continued whisper spoke, as she pointed Raven toward BB who sat hackneyed on the ground, "Look at him. He's pathetic. I love it and in my position you would love it as well. Power."

Terra moved away from Raven and back to BB. Stopping her struggle, Raven reached out with her mind, trying to release the feeling of hope into BB; to give him the best mindset she could – the only weapon she could lend him to win this battle.

"Hello, BB. Let's try this again. Back from the beginning. Why are you here?"

The two stared. Two totally different faces mixed with totally different feelings and Raven did her best to fix the battle as well as she could for BB. Whether she liked Terra or not, she didn't want someone to get hurt, and if Terra left right now, she knew that the teenager would never be seen again.

"To help you."

Good, the hope was working. For once, Raven was sure that BB was thinking; his mind churning and formulating a plan of action to gain the upper hand.

He was walking towards her again, the slow pace, but this time she didn't move away, and they stood for a few moments, just staring. And the man behind Raven, who did not seem to worry about things at all, began to tense up.

BB grabbed hold of the back of Terra's neck forcing the distance between the slightly taller girl and himself to close as his lips met hers.

The only way to describe the look on her face was something of absolute shock, confusion, and in other words her eyes had grown to the size of saucers. Quick, casual, smooth Terra was freaking out, over a kiss.

But then, so was the man behind Raven, who was getting angrier by the second, and Raven ignored her own emotions to attempt to warn the two.

"GARFIELD!"

It was too late. The man had pulled out a weapon and fired it at BB.

But he was never shot.

Terra, with one last, "I'm sorry," look towards the boy who'd just kissed her, she jumped in front of the bullet, taking it for him and saving his life. The man cursed and quickly disappeared, running past the bleachers and seeming to disappear quickly thereafter, but he was no longer of concern to anyone.

Gracefully Terra's body fell, lifeless onto the cold ground, but Raven could feel her as she also went down to her knees, she wasn't dead yet. All she could feel was remorse and ask of pardon, through and through, interlaced with one feeling Raven would never say aloud.

"Terra!"

There was rarely such a cry of pain in the sound of a name, but BB had seemed to get it down to a 't' just that one time.

The words Terra had said haunted Raven then; what would he cry if she had been the one to fall? What if the bullet had not pierced Terra but his empathic friend – the dark one who seemed to delight in freaking him out? Would he cry? Would he hold her limp figure to his face, whispering "I'm sorry" over and over again?

She crawled to the spot where the body lay, trying to see if there would possibly be a way to save her life – the bullet had captured her between her neck and her collarbone and her breaths were not coming quickly but painfully few and far in between them.

"BB," Raven said quietly, trying to speak consolingly. This was the first time she had ever called him by his nickname; given for the beastliness of his dyed green hair, "BB, give me your cell phone. We need to call the police."

"She really wasn't bad," he said, desperately, ignoring her request, "Everyone makes mistakes."

Raven sighed, looking in the direction that the man Terra had worked for had run away. "I know," she whispered, then, speaking a little bit louder, she said, "And even though she's unconscious, all she's thinking about is how sorry she is and how much she begs for your forgiveness."

Gar sighed, sitting back up again and sending a kind smile to Rachel across from him. "I know. I just have some problems letting go of the past; you know what I mean?"

"I see," Rachel murmured, adding 'more than you would understand,' as a mental addition to the sentence. This day seemed to be filled with intense speeches and long, thoughtful silences in response. Gar was no longer worried, but he was thinking about his own memories and he was confused in a way.

All Rachel did was sit; she did not want to seem like she was prying into Gar's personal past – histories are different for every person, but some prefer to keep them hidden; they lock them in a drawer behind their oldest pairs of socks and never look at them again and hope that no one else happens to be looking through their underwear drawer. Others simply tell it to all who approach or who ask.

But Rachel, she understood the feeling of not bringing up the past – she tried to keep her own past hidden; from others but also from herself. The day after she'd left she spent day after day in deep meditation to remove any trace of those past years from her memory.

So why was a simple conversation in a coffee shop bringing them back to her?

And why did she want to hear more – why did desire come to her busily, attacking her mind and attempting to make her remember again? And why was she accepting it?

"I…" Rachel stumbled on words for a moment, still infuriated with herself for being different than she normally was, "I wonder… what about the other girl?"

Gar looked at her, a blank stare like one she had once carried constantly greeted her but, using that stare in her past, Rachel knew how to find flaws. His eyes had a bit of a sparkle; a happiness when he thought about this other person. She wasn't just another friend who had went away, but she also was not shot, nor was she pushed away from his group.

"I don't know," he stated simply, not madly, not depressedly and not joyously in any way. His smirk was mysterious as if she just was a kind of special kind of person who could not just walk away from something, her style was different.

Rachel was taken aback by the words he spoke. "What?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. No one does."

Showing more emotion in her facial expression than she had in a long time, Rachel furrowed her eyebrows, sincerely confused but her mind crying out to her, trying to tell her something. "How can you not know?"

"Dude, you can't explain it." Gar put up his arms in an even more exaggerated shrug to illustrate his point. "She just disappeared."

"No one can just disappear," Rachel stated, sipping her tea again; her rational side showing through her and her skeptic nature blossoming in front of him. The girl with the violet hair believed in the unknown, but she spent years studying the sciences; no one can simply disappear.

"Then obviously," Gar stated, "You've never met our Raven."

Rachel couldn't breathe. She dropped the near empty mug to the floor and allowed the cracks in her mask to expand – they broke all the way through.

She cried.

Dick put his hand on the one who was Raven's shoulder, the night sky echoing every word that he spoke to her. When he had started out looking for her, he had imagined that he would find her crying somewhere – he didn't know why but his instinct told him so, but the girl seated in front of him had eyes that were as dry as school child's as they paid no attention to the teacher.

"Raven."

She shrugged his touch away, not wanting anyone to be there, but at the same time wanting him to stay – she wanted him to break her so that she could have an excuse to pour out everything to him; all of the secrets and troubles of her past and to cry. Just to cry.

But the one who was Raven knew better than that, and she told him as if she were telling him what pages they had for homework in math class. "Richard, just this once I want you to thoroughly listen to me. Something bad has happened but I can't tell you about it. I just need some time alone."

"Just tell me what's wrong."

Good old Richard, trying to help when he clearly couldn't.

Waiting a beat, the one who was a Raven turned to the boy behind her and gave to him one of her very rare unreachable smiles. A long, sincere one as her lips stretched to the sides of her face.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine."

He left soon after that, barely thirty seconds went by before he put a comforting hand on the violet haired empath's shoulder and walked away, shaking his head to leave the poor girl with herself on the rooftop.

'Good,' she thought, 'It's better this way.'

But someone had other plans.

"You know when someone asks you what's wrong you shouldn't blow them off."

BB sat down, making himself immediately at home on the cement covered rooftop on which the one who was a Raven sat. He had his trademark goofy grin written all over his face and it didn't seem like he would be leaving her alone any time soon, and a smile would not work the same wonders it had on Dick; it would only lead him on.

The one who was a Raven released a growl from her throat. "I'm fine."

Showing a long, theatric head nod, BB looked like he seriously understood. His words said otherwise. "Dude. You didn't leave the table until _after_ you opened the letter. And when you did, boy did your eyes get big."

"No they didn't!"

BB chuckled, not even having to say the catch phrase of 'caught ya!'

The one who was a Raven growled again, except this time letting it show on her face. "Fine, so I got some disappointing mail. Yale didn't accept me as an undergraduate, all right?"

BB shook his head. His smile always remained. "Rae, why do you gotta lie all the time? You're not very good at lying."

That in itself was a lie. And a very bad one, as he probably would say. Raven was a very excellent liar – her poker face was down to a pact and she could continue on with her story to make it as intricate as she wanted for quite a long time before anyone even began to catch on that the story might possibly not be true.

"Don't call me Rae," she warned.

The green haired boy picked up the one who was a Raven's hand off of the ground, wrapping it in his own and holding it for a few minutes above his lap. His own fingers played around with hers, they didn't remain interlocked, and he stared at them contently, trying to recompose his thoughts coherently.

"Raven," he said, turning into his head toward her to see what her face spoke without speaking, "You remember when Terra… when Terra… You remember when she died?"

All that the violet haired girl did was nod, in response, and he continued.

"You said that she was thinking about how sorry she was and stuff – how did you know that?"

"I…" The one who was a Raven stumbled over the words, not quite sure what she was going to say. "I… feel things. Like, what people are feeling…"

BB, in thought, breathed deeply, nodding. "Man, I thought so…"

His brain was still working, but the one who was a Raven could not figure out by his feelings what he was trying to get at by this conversation. His heartbeat was quickly moving as he thought nervously; apprehension, understanding…

"So," he looked at her dead in the face now, "Do you know what I'm thinking right now?"

He wasn't joking, not even a little bit and his eyes told the whole story, which all made sense to the one who was a Raven right now.

"No, I," the one who was a Raven did not know what to say so all she did was watch in fear as the story unfolded itself for her, not sure if what she had figured out was true and not sure whether she wanted it to be true or not.

"I'm thinking," he said, dropping her hand and taking her chin in his own hand, "That it doesn't matter if you tell me what's wrong. If you need to you will. But what really matters right now is that you do what you think's right. You know you want to."

The one who was a Raven let his arms enfold around her in a long embrace. Koriand'r had hugged her many times before, and on occasion Dick, Victor, or even BB had given her a hug, but she had never felt the feeling she did now. She was safe; warm like a winter blanket, happy as she ever had been. She was loved.

BB pulled away from the one who was a Raven, but just enough so he could look at her eyes; just enough so he could lean in…

"I'm sorry, Gar," The one who was a Raven said, her voice with tears in it, as her body encased itself with blackness, and she disappeared through the roof as if nothing had ever been there and that BB had been, the whole time, holding the darkness.

"Rachel, are you okay?" Gar held the purple haired girl to arms length from him so that he could look at her face. It was covered in tears and smears from those tears – fresh from moments before, "Is it something I said?"

Rachel, sniffling, shook her head. "No," was her, ever monotonous, response, "It's nothing."

Gar just shook his head. "You're a horrible liar."

Surprised, Rachel looked up at the boy sitting in front of her, for he was still such a boy in so many ways. Yes, she was sure it was him; his hair was blonde and not that sickly colour green that it'd once been and he'd grown up a bit, but there sat before her the same BB that she'd schooled with for two years out of her life. The first one a disaster, the second one simply a dream.

Rachel squeezed her eyebrows together in thought, trying to remember the exact words that she wanted to say as she felt for the emotions inside of Gar.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, "right now."

He seemed surprised and very confused but did not say anything.

"Well, now you're confused, because this came out of nowhere." Rachel's voice was the low crackle of her always emotionless tone. "But right before that you were worried. Probably that you'd hurt someone you barely knew – Desire, because you wanted to know what was going on inside of my own mind – and most of all was something glittery. I haven't felt that emotion from you since the day Terra died."

His eyes grew wide and began to bubble with tears.

"You had hope for someone you barely knew – yes I know that Terra was really new as well – hope that they would accept you and possibly one day be the person you're waiting for. BB, you've been waiting for me to read you and there it is. I-"

Her speech was cut off, quickly, by the feeling of lips over her own. It took her a moment to realize that they were Gar's and she soon accepted him, wrapping her arms around him as they continued to kiss.

When they had parted, Rachel had one statement that she needed to say. "I told you, Garfield, people can't just disappear."

Gar chuckled, taking hold of her hand and holding it in his own. "Well you'll just have to tell me what happened then, dude, 'cause all my glasses tell me is that you disappeared right on the roof."

But she could never explain it to the confused Gar. Because in some hearts there are deep spots that cannot be touched except by the holder, and even she couldn't always understand what had happened that night. Somehow, the Raven flew from her perch, and didn't return from her flight until many years later when a Beast came up to snatch it.

* * *

-author's note- there's a couple issues, I know, and I'll prolly come back and rewrite/rerelease it another time. But for now, that's it. Please review; tell me what you like and what you hate and SOMEONE GIVE ME IDEAS TO WRITE! 


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